The Far Right

[krb]

I have a question:

I see the term "Far Right" thrown around a lot on this forum. What exactly is or who is the "Far Right"?
Is a Trump supporter "Far Right"? How about a Christian church-goer? Ok, maybe a church-goer of a certain denomination? How about someone who votes republican? How about someone who believes that country borders be respected and entry should be by lawful means? What about the folks that believe in private gun ownership?

Are all or any of these "FAR RIGHT"? Tell me... exactly, where is the line drawn?

Oh by the way, is there any one that is "FAR LEFT"? Who are they? Are they "extremists" (another vague and arbitrary label) too. Help me identify them.

Are extremists only on the "Right"? If so, isn't the "spectrum" lopsided/unbalanced or warped?

I see the words Nazi, Hitler and Fascist also used a lot to describe the "Far Right". Why don't the names of Josef Stalin or Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot ever come up as examples of "evil" people or representatives of repressive freedom stealing, free speech depriving, negative systems. Between the two of them, they sure had quite a few people terminated... at least according to the history books I read. Were they the Far Left or Far Right?

I really dislike labels placed on people. Usually pinning labels on people is a very easy way to malign someone you don't agree with to get others to have negative thoughts toward. It really is an attempt at mind-manipulation of "others".




 

[Merrick]

Uh, I don’t know where you live, but in the US the names of prominent Communists are used all the time to attack people on the left, especially if those people are promoting any kind of major social safety net program.

Is there a Far Left? Of course there is. Most people are quicker to label those on the Far Left as extremists than those on the Far Right, despite the multiple cases of domestic terrorism where the perpetrator was Far Right.

Where is the line drawn? It’s obviously not a fixed line in the sand. People are too quick to label someone who disagrees with them as a Nazi or a Stalinist. It’s part of the increasing division that Orion wants to sow to keep this planet from unifying in a positive social memory complex. Why should I help my brother if he’s a Nazi? Why should you help your sister if she’s a Tankie?

Even here there’s a ton of division over these things. We should be working to find our unity instead of worrying about labels, especially political ones.

[isis]

https://beinglibertarian.com/misconceptions-far-right/

[unity100]

.......

First, you have to realize that US as a society has moved towards far right itself since 30-40 years, especially economically:



So much that the current establishment Democrats qualify as at least center-right everywhere else in the world. From Clinton to Pelosi, to whomever you can imagine: They are even to the right of the right wing party of Germany, for example. 

..........

This is because the definitions of left/right are based on economic stances of political ideologies, and according to those proper definitions, US have fallen off the right hand side of the cliff a long time ago.

For example, the more left you move, you have more pro-people policies, egalitarianism and power of ordinary person in politics:

Like, curbing the power of corporations, rich, anti-monopoly, socialized programs, socialized education, healthcare, welfare, preventing big donations to politicians from the rich, or even better, total ban of private donations to political parties and politicians and public funding of politicians and elections. Of course, stronger regulations, laws to prevent corporate skulduggery and especially higher taxes for extremely rich and corporations are musts.

And likewise, the more right you move, things go in the different direction:

Relaxation of rules, regulations, power of money in politics, corporations being able to exercise their power with little limits, reduction or removal of social programs, safety nets, free services, privatization of healthcare, privatization of education, insurance companies, corporations being able to consolidate and integrate many sectors to the extent of becoming state-inside-states, everything being left to the market, people having to fend for themselves in a rapacious profit-oriented atmosphere, ordinary man on the street disempowered, his political power ending up as much as the size of his wallet, everything happening without his electoral vote not changing anything, corporations or the rich dictating domestic and foreign policies, and so on.

Democrats and Republicans in US overlap in their policies in the right wing definition above. Privatization, reducing taxes on the rich, power of corporate money in politics, foreign wars and ensuing lucrative military contracts, privatizing and plundering the social programs - they are 100% match in everything like that.

The only thing which separates them are totally non-economical, cultural and religious stuff.


This is not by accident or chance - its by design:

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy...democracy/

Back in 1971, US Chamber of Commerce published a memo which called the rich to use their corporations and influence to push the society towards the right. It explicitly stated that the new social movements (hippies, civil rights, vietnam protests etc) were threatening the corporate control and profits, and that the people were having 'too much democracy'.

It called on the rich to use their wealth and corporations to consolidate education, media and indoctrinate the people to the 'American way', and demonize/vilify and repress egalitarian social movements, social demants - ie anything that would threaten corporate control and profits.

It worked...

Starting from mid 1970s, the industries did exactly that. From media to education everything was consolidated. In sectors like education in which everything cannot be consolidated, political influence was used to twist things.

Which was easier because through the use of money, they have incrementally removed all laws and regulations preventing them from influencing politics. So it became a revolving door in between the industry and itself. Someone can be corporate exec today, Administration appointee tomorrow, and again back, and again...

Influence of funding was used on universities and research, endless private think thank 'research' organizations were founded to propagate actual propaganda. Justifying whatever the rich and corporations needed, vilifying everything that opposed them. From social programs to social movements, to socialism etc - everything that was dangerous was vilified. You couldnt get funding as a non-compliant researcher, professor, teacher. You couldnt find a job as a non-compliant journalist. If you became non-compliant after being hired, you would get fired.

So in 30-40 years, US media has consolidated in the hands of ~4 corporations, whose shareholderships overlapped, US academia has been pushed to far right bar a few exceptions, geniuses who you couldnt fire, and entire society was slowly conditioned to become economically right wing through immense conditioning and propaganda.

It wasnt until 2008 banking crisis crashed everything, and then profited off of the ordinary man in the US which it bankrupted, and all the measures and attempts and hopes to address it flopped and Occupy Wall Street protest has contested the official narrative that things changed a bit. When Occupy was violently repressed, it woke up a lot of people to the actual nature of their system. 

All of this culminated in Sanders, the new justice democrats and their movement, which has only recently started to challenge this sociopathic, brutal economically right wing profit machine.

This, is what the machine feared.

Center left in a country which was pushed far right, where 'the center' has actually became center-right.

Hence the machine started screaming endlessly about 'far left', how it was dangerous, how US was sliding towards far left.

The machine which is far right. Which considers 'the center' as center right. Blabbers about 'far left'. Which is actually only center left...

Such is the situation in US.

US itself is economically far right. Only exceptions are Sanders, AOC etc - these new people.

So much that US has become a curiosity for the rest of the world, since its talking points and proposals became increasingly further right as the country toppled far right. There were Republicans who started talking about privatizing retirement funds. Road network. They already started privatizing the army by allowing private mercenary companies which was funded and equipped even better than US Army itself, like Blackwater. 

Its a picture of craziness for the rest of the world.

.........

But the far-right fall in US doesnt only stop in the actual definition of left/right.

Because, you see, if you take everything from the hands of the ordinary people, impoverish them, leave them to the mercy of the market, turn their everyday into ride of anxiety of future, you have to give something in return to be able to get votes. To even be able to have talking points for elections, you need something.

Hence both parties adopted totally non economical talking points: Abortion, nationalism, immigrants' integration, good old days, foreigners, feminism, climate change, this and that.\

Some of those talking points were adopted in the last 5 years. Note that every single new 'issue' that was adopted by the establishment of each party is non-economical. They never involve reducing corporate power, donations, subsidies, higher corporate or income taxes, even nothing that would prevent foreign wars. 

You are supposed to busy yourself with these non-economic issues, and vote based on them, and preferably even better - vote on 'qualities' of the candidates - so that no issue which will involve curbing corporate power and hoarded trillions to help the ordinary man and the society will be raised.

Hence, both parties' establishments go towards extreme in screaming about their selected non-economic issue. GOP screams about religion, abortion, foreigners, immigrants, the nation, security etc, while DNC screams about climate change, feminism, pro-choice, political correctness and so on.

Harder and harder, louder and louder with every passing day, because they must prevent the voters to think and talk about economic issues at all costs

Hence a portion of US society is pushed towards cultural far right as well as economic far right, whereas the other portion is still pushed to economical far right, whereas culturally being pushed in random directions.

So much that Republican rich would not mind actual fascism itself if it prevented their power and profits from getting damaged, and the Democrat rich would not mind actual fascism if it protected their power and profits - as long as it was somewhat politically correct.

Therefore, entire country keeps toppling far right, economically and culturally, running towards actual fascism with only a few people at the head of a new movement opposing it.

......

Such is the story and state of downhill far-right tumble in US. All for money. All for profit. Greed. At the expense of everything and everyone.

[Louisabell]

This is the most simple and unbiased explanation I can make.

The linear left-right scale is ineffective at describing political idealogy. Personally I think the linear scale is taught in schools and used in media a lot in order to confuse and obfuscate (it's not like it's in the best interest of a government to educate its populance on good political theory afterall).

Political ideologies sit on a 2d plane, such as below.


When people talk about the far right and the far left, they're referring to the authoritarian right (facism, meaning private ownership of the government) and the authoritarian left (communism under strict hierarchical central planning/control). In practice these systems are very alike.

The extreme bottom left is anarcho-communism (communal ownership with no central control/planning - not sure how that's possible but I admit I've done no reading on it) and extreme bottom right is anarcho-capitalist, which also has no central governing body, but with individual property rights.

The anarchists also get lumped in with the far left/right, I think it's because people confuse the political term anarchy with literal anarchy (lawlessness, disorder, riots, unmitigated violence, etc). They're not the same.

Libertarianism is also far right on the x-axis, but considered more "centrist", mainly because it is very low on the authoritarian y-axis. Same with some forms of social democracy for the left, but again are considered more "centrist" because they're low on the authoritarian scale.

So in summation: authoritarian governments bad

[krb]

Well first, to those that have posted to this thread, thanks for the time you spent at the keyboard writing detailed responses on the subject of the "left-right" spectrum. The responses are well thought out and informative, and are a good description of the various "camps" of ideology.

[Merrick]

Just to clear up one misconception, both Communists and left Anarchists believe in a stateless society without government. Communists believe it is necessary for there to be a transitory State run by and for the people, which would eventually wither away. As we’ve seen, this transitory State does what all power structures do, justify their position indefinitely and gathering more power.

Anti-authoritarians on the right assume that unfettered capitalism will result in societal growth, despite the mountains of evidence that all capitalism does is funnel money to the top of a pyramid and then eventually the pyramid collapses.

[krb]

Thanks for the clarification Merrick. I didn't know the communists had (in theory) the goal of a stateless society.

[Louisabell]

All these top-down approaches to politics will eventually become defunct anyway once the scientocracy comes in.

Automation here we come.

[Merrick]

Thanks for the clarification Merrick. I didn't know the communists had (in theory) the goal of a stateless society.

One of the big critiques of Communism by Anarchists is that neither Marx nor Lenin discussed how the structures of government would die off, they both took it as a given. I’m not sure if Mao talked much about it. But yes, the goal is a stateless society.

[unity100]

In Louisabell's chart, Hitler must be put close to Pinochet, other than that its pretty accurate.

[flofrog]

Very nice diagram Louisabell... . and comment